Professional Documents
Culture Documents
502
The word ‘require’ looks to be confusing one. The original Hebrew
word is ‘( ’דרשdarash) which, according to Strong’s Dic. (entry 1875,
p.31), means: ‘inquire, question’. According to L. Koehler and W.
Baumgartner’s The Heb. and Aramaic Lexicon of the OT (Leiden, Brill:
2001), p.233, it means: ‘to enquire about, to investigate, to require
account, to avenge upon, etc’. Some of the versions of the Bible have tried
to remove the confusion and explain the word properly. NIV has
Appendix 3: Muh@ammad Foretold in the O T (The Prophet Like unto Moses)
translated the clause as: ‘I myself will call him to account.’ Good News
Bible renders it as: ‘and I will punish anyone who refuses to obey him.’
The New Oxford Annotated Bible III Edn. Interprets it as: ‘I myself will
hold accountable.’ Knox Trans. Says: ‘shall feel my vengeance.’ The New
Living Translation (p. 116) notes: ‘I will personally deal with anyone who
will not listen to the messages the prophet proclaims on my behalf.’ It
means that the matter is not optional. It is rather a very important and
sensitive matter. Whosoever does not listen to and obey this ‘Prophet’
when he comes, shall be called to account and inflicted proper punishment
for his heedlessness. It shows that the matter is very serious and one is
required to be very cautious, conscious and conscientious about it.
503
Deuteronomy, 18:15-19 KJV.
504
‘Midst’, in Hebrew ‘( ’קרבQareb) means; ‘from 7126; the nearest
part’ (Strong’s Dic. Entry 7130, p. 105); and 7126 is: ‘Qarab’ which
means: ‘a primary root; to approach or bring near, be near’. It shows
that nearness is its basic theme, and as such ‘from the midst of thee’
would mean ‘from your near relatives’. It, thus, becomes clear that the
‘a prophet’ would be from among the near relations of the Israelites
who could definitely be the only prophet from the line of Ishma#‘el, i.e.
‘Muh~ammad’ (pbAh)
505
(i) Deu. 18: 18 KJV asserts:
I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto
thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto
them all that I shall command him,
512
The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon, Brill, 2001, 2:1132-34.
513
Deu. 18:2 KJV (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Pub., 1989; p.179).
Muhammad Foretold in the Bible by Name - 217
Appendix 3: Muh@ammad Foretold in the O T (The Prophet Like unto Moses)
514
Strong’s Dic. of the Heb. Bible, entry 251; p. 10.
515
Deu. 23: 7 KJV.
for multitude. And the angel of the Lord said unto her,
Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt
call his name Ishmael; because the Lord hath heard thy
affliction. And he will be a wild man; his hand will be
against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and
he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren [stress
added].516
The word ‘brethren’ has once again been used in the Bible
in the same sense. In the context, none other than
Ishma#‘el’s (pbAh) step-brothers, Abraham’s (pbAh) sons from
Sarah and Keturah, can be implied:
These are the sons of Ishmael, and these are their names,
by their towns, and by their castles; twelve princes according
to their nations. And these are the years of the life of
Ishmael, an hundred and thirty and seven years; and he gave
up the ghost and died; and was gathered unto his people.
And they dwelt from Havilah unto Shur that is before Egypt,
as thou goest toward Assyria; and he died in the presence of
all his brethren [stress added].517
From the above presentations, it can be safely concluded
that the phrase ‘of thy brethren’ refers to the Ishma#‘elites as
the brothers (cousins) of Israelites etc. In clause ‘Therefore
shall they [i.e. the Levites’] have no inheritance among
their brethren,’ of this very chapter 18 of Deut. (v. 2), the
word ‘brethren’ signifies the Jewish tribes other than the
Levites, and the Levites stand plainly excluded from this
‘brethren’. In the same way the Israelites stand excluded
from this phrase. So the phrase ‘of thy brethren’ can only
mean ‘of the Ishma#‘elites’, and the ‘a prophet’ would
obviously refer to the only prophet from the line of
Ishma#‘el (pbAh), i.e. ‘Muh~ammad’ (pbAh).
Here is an interesting observation. It is said that alterations,
additions, deletions, and interpolations have been freely
exercised in the Bible. No reasonable scholar of the Bible
516
Gen. 16:10-12 KJV.
517
Gen. 25:16-18 KJV.
Muhammad Foretold in the Bible by Name - 219
Appendix 3: Muh@ammad Foretold in the O T (The Prophet Like unto Moses)
518
‘The Way’, An Illustrated Edn. of The Living Bible, (Illinois:
Tyndale House Publishers, 1976), 174.
519
Holy Bible, New Living Translation (Illinois: Tyndale House
Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, USA, 1999), p. 116.
520
The New English Bible (Oxford: The Bible Societies in association
with Oxford Univ. Press, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1985), 136.
521
Deu. 18: 18 KJV.
Muhammad Foretold in the Bible by Name - 221
Appendix 3: Muh@ammad Foretold in the O T (The Prophet Like unto Moses)
522
Matt. 21: 43 KJV.
523
The Jews had been treating the prophets in the similar way.
524
‘His son’, here, implies Jesus; but not in the sense that it was of some
spermatic seed of the Lord from some wife of His, which can by no means
be claimed for Him. No ‘man’ (or any creature) in heaven or on earth has
ever been begotten of Him through His going to some woman (or some
female spouse, which he never had had). He is the only One and Unique of
His kind. He is not a member of some species or some family of gods, any
of which does not, and cannot, exist. Man is mortal, and the father of a
man, a mortal being, is also bound to be a mortal. And who can imagine
that the Lord is mortal? The Qur’a#n asserts, ‘All that lives on earth or in the
heavens is bound to pass away; but for ever will abide thy Sustainer’s Self,
full of majesty and glory’. (‘The Message of the Qur’an# ’, tr. Muh~ammad
Asad, London: Dar al-Andalus, Gibraltar, Distributors, E. J. Brill, 1980, p.
825). The use of the words or the theme ‘son of God’ for the human beings
is so common in the Bible that it has been recorded in it in this sense for so
many times. The word ‘son’ has been used here, if it be not a later
interpolation, in the sense that God had raised him up in a conspicuously
extra-ordinary manner, with wonderful miracles, so that there may not
remain any excuse with the Israelites to reject and refuse him. It may,
however, be clearly borne in mind that the whole of the passage is merely a
parable. It is not a statement of actual facts in all its details.
525
The International Bible Com. (Bangalore: TPI, 2004), p. 1379
explains this parable in the following words:
This is an updated version of the Song of the Vineyard in Isa. 5:1-7,
where the owner is God and the vineyard is Israel that, in spite of care
and cultivation by the owner, produces only wild grapes. In this
version tenants are added who are to care for the vineyard and are
responsible for producing the fruits for the owner. These tenants are
the religious leaders whose responsibility is to nurture spiritual growth
and fruitfulness among the people. This is the fruit the owner’s
servants the prophets are sent to collect. The mistreatment of the
prophets of the past by beating, killing, and stoning is well attested
(Jer. 20:2; 26:21-23; 2Chr. 24:19-21) and was often referred to by Jesus
(5:12; 22:6; 23:30-37). Now God has sent God’s son, Jesus.
526
Matt. 21:33-40 KJV.
527
It physically came true with the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 at
Muhammad Foretold in the Bible by Name - 223
Appendix 3: Muh@ammad Foretold in the O T (The Prophet Like unto Moses)
‘a’ prophet
‘a prophet’ is another important feature to be cautiously
the hands of Roman General, Titus, who later became the Emperor of
the Roman Empire in 79 AD and remained as such till his death in 81
AD. Jesus (pbAh) had foreseen the ruin of the temple and Jerusalem, as
he said, ‘Seest thou these great buildings? There shall not be left one
stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.’ (Mark 13:2 KJV).
The original Greek word for this ‘other’ is ‘α λλοs’ (allos) which
528
means: ‘else,’ i.e. different (in many applications) [Strong’s Dic. of the
Greek Testament, Entry 243; p. 10].
529
‘Other husbandmen’ signifies ‘a different tenant’, which indicates
the Ishmaelites, who are another ‘nation’, as recorded in v.43,
‘Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from
you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.’
530
It obviously refers to the settling of Hagar and her son Ishma#‘el
(pbAh) in Makkah. This reference also makes it clear that this parable of
Jesus (pbAh) relates to the transfer of the prophethood from the
Israelites to the Ishmaelites. It is again a figurative statement.
531
The Jews considered themselves the ‘Chosen People’. If the
‘Kingdom of God’, i. e. the leadership of people goes outside their clan
and be assigned to someone ‘else’ who be not an Israelite, which be
‘the Lord’s doing’, It would obviously be marvellous in their eyes.
532
Matt. 21:41-43 KJV.
224 - Muhammad Foretold in the Bible by Name
Appendix 3: Muh@ammad Foretold in the O T (The Prophet Like unto Moses)
533
Deu. 33:2 KJV writes,
The Lord came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them; he
shined forth from mount Paran, and he came with ten thousands of
saints; from his right hand went a fiery law for them.
This prophecy was uttered by Moses (pbAh) soon before his death. The
first clause, ‘The Lord came from Sinai’, refers to the assignment of the
‘call’ to Moses at Sinai. The second clause, ‘rose up from Seir unto them’,
refers to the assignment of the ‘call’ to Jesus in the region of Seir. The
third clause, ‘he shined forth from mount Paran’, refers to the assignment
of the ‘call’ to Prophet Muh~ammad (pbAh) at mount Paran (A Cyclopedic
Bible Concordance, NY: Oxf. Univ. Press, n.d., p.217 noted the meaning
of Paran as ‘cavernous’, which ‘Makkah’ physically is), which is the
name of the mountainous and cavernous region where Abraham (pbAh)
had settled his wife Hagar and his ‘first born’ and the ‘only’ son Ishma#‘el,
as ordered to him by the Lord (Gen 21:21). The fourth clause, ‘he came
with ten thousands of saints’, refers to the conquest of Makkah by Prophet
Muh~ammad (pbAh) at the head of an army of ten thousand holy ones,
which is a unique event in the whole of the history of the humankind in
which exactly ten thousand holy ones took part. The original Hebrew
word ‘ata#’, for the word ‘came’ means ‘to come upon’ (Strong’s Dic. of
the Heb. Bible, entry 857; 18), and ‘to come upon’ means ‘to attack by
surprise’ (The Oxford Dic. and Thesaurus, 1997; 281), as Prophet
Muh~ammad (pbAh) actually did, to avoid bloodshed in the holy city. The
fifth clause, ‘from his right hand went a ‘fiery law’ for them’, refers to the
revelation of the Qur’a#n to Prophet Muh~ammad (pbAh), which is the final
and definitive code of divine ‘Law’.
534
‘rail’, i.e. to scoff; to use vigorously or mockingly reproachful
language; to revile (Chambers Eng. Dic., Cambridge: 1989, p. 1213).
535
‘Conglomeration’, i.e. a heterogeneous combination, a cluster
(Encyclopedic World Dic. Ed. Patrick Hanks [Beirut: Librairie du
Liban, 1974], 351).
536
It may be noted here that the writer has genuinely recorded his
objective observaion. It can easily be appreciated that the whole
package of the attributes of Moses can rightly be compared to none
other than Prophet Muh@ammad (pbAh) in all the human history. It can
by no means be applied to Jesus Christ; whereas most of the Christian
scholars willingly apply it to him.
537
Revd. James L. Dow, Collins Gem Dic. of the Bible, Gen. Ed. J. B.
Muhammad Foretold in the Bible by Name - 227
Appendix 3: Muh@ammad Foretold in the O T (The Prophet Like unto Moses)
538
McKenzie’s DB (p.457) explains about ‘Joshua’:
Lieutenant and successor of Moses and hero of the book of Joshua.
(…); he appears as military leader and as an attendant of Moses who
guarded the tabernacle. He was one of the men sent to scout Canaan before
the entrance of the Israelites and with Caleb resisted the timidity of the
other scouts. (…) Joshua was solemnly commissioned to succeed Moses.
539
The actual Hebrew word used for this ‘come’ is ‘’בוא, which can be
pronounced as bow’. According to Strong’s Dic. of the Heb. Bible,
entry No. 935; p.19 it means: ‘to go or come (in a wide variety of
applications):–abide, befall, besiege, go (down, in, to war), [in-]vade,
Muhammad Foretold in the Bible by Name - 229
Appendix 3: Muh@ammad Foretold in the O T (The Prophet Like unto Moses)
lead.’ It shows that ‘the messenger of the covenant (it may be noted
here that Jesus never claimed for himself to be the messenger of the
covenant)’ ‘shall suddenly go down to war, besiege, and invade his
temple’. It is a true and exact picture of Prophet Muh~ammad’s conquest
of Makkah. No other prophet ever ‘came so triumphantly and suddenly
to his temple’ as did Prophet Muh~ammad (pbAh) come.
540
How clearly and unequivocally came this prophecy true in the
person of Prophet Muh~ammad (pbAh)! He secretly came upon his
Temple, Ka’bah, in the city of Makkah, at the time of its conquest, so
that it be conquered without any battle and bloodshed. The Makkans
came to know about the arrival of Muh~ammad [pbAh] at the head of an
army of ten thousand holy ones only when he had reached the gate of
the city and the city was taken without any bloodshed. This is what
Malachi had said, ‘shall suddenly come to his temple.’
541
Malachi 3:1 KJV.
542
J.L. McKenzie, DB, 537.
543
Deu. 34:10 KJV.
some other redactor of the book when the Torah and some
other books of the Bible were first compiled in written form
about five hundred years after Moses (pbAh). It means that
the prophecy remained unfulfilled for not less than 500
years after Moses (pbAh). It does not mean that it was
fulfilled after it. Nobody ever claimed to be ‘the messenger
of the covenant’ or fulfilled its pre-requisites at any time
after Moses (pbAh). Almost every scholar of the Bible
understands that it stood unfulfilled even after the time of
Jesus Christ (pbAh). The Bible Knowledge Commentary
observes:
During the first century A.D. the official leaders of
Judaism were still looking for the fulfillment of Moses’
[pbAh] prediction (cf. John I: 21).544
544
The Bible Knowledge Commentary, ed. John F. Walvoord, & R. B.
Zuck (Illinois: SP Publ., Inc., Weaton, 3rd Edn., 1986), p. 297.
545
John I:19-25 KJV.
Muhammad Foretold in the Bible by Name - 231
Appendix 3: Muh@ammad Foretold in the O T (The Prophet Like unto Moses)
546
Jesus Christ is reported to have said, ‘For all the prophets and the
law prophesied until John. And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which
was for to come [NKJV translates it as: ‘And if you are willing to
receive it, he is Elijah who is to come’]. He that hath ears to hear, let
him hear.’ (Matt. 11:13-15 KJV). Again, in the same Gospel (Matt. 17:12),
Jesus (pbAh) asserts, ‘But I say unto you that Elias is come already, and
they knew him not, and have done unto him whatsoever they listed
[NKJV: ‘wished’]. Likewise shall also the Son of man suffer of them.’
547
Matt. 11:2-6 KJV.
Muhammad Foretold in the Bible by Name - 233
Appendix 3: Muh@ammad Foretold in the O T (The Prophet Like unto Moses)
548
The New Jerusalem Bible (Bombay: The Bombay Saint Paul
Society, 1993), Acts 3:19-23; pp. 1803f.
549
It may refer to the second coming of Jesus Christ.
234 - Muhammad Foretold in the Bible by Name
Appendix 3: Muh@ammad Foretold in the O T (The Prophet Like unto Moses)
Whatever the case may be, Jesus (pbAh) has never claimed
to be ‘That Prophet like unto Moses (pbAh)’. It means that
‘The Promised Prophet’ was yet to come during the
lifetime of Jesus Christ (pbAh). Now it is only Prophet
Muh~ammad (pbAh), who fulfills all the requisite conditions of
‘That Prophet like unto Moses (pbAh)’. It is he who is the only
prophet from among the brethren of Israel that has come after
Jesus Christ (pbAh), and whom the Almighty Allah Himself has
pronounced to be ‘like unto Moses (pbAh)’ as has been recorded
in the Qur’a#n,
9 8# 8 & #$# &O5
# 8 # 8 & #3_ # 8
#)\ 8 8# 2̀@#f 5
# 8 8 #3_ # 8
9"
\ = b u 3
/ (#)0
9 O^`f #2_ _ F#$%
8 # /̀8# 8 g
8 u \ -9;g# [
# 8 &O5=# 5~j8
J
#"~_ j# Q&
550
O5^# = # ~ # g9 (#f .#)& ?+ # \ ~_ g# J ~ @# , O5
$u_ /# J
2
8 #
Surely We have sent unto you a Messenger as a witness
over you, even as We sent To Pharaoh a Messenger [‘Which
Messenger had been sent to Pharaoh?’ Who doesn’t know
that it was none other than Moses?], but Pharaoh rebelled
against the Messenger, so We seized him remorselessly. If
therefore you disbelieve, how will you guard yourselves
against a day that shall make the children grey-headed? 551
Whereby heaven shall be split, and its promise shall be
performed. Surely this is a reminder; so let him who will [,]
take unto his Lord a way.552
The above dissertation affirms that ‘The Prophet like unto
Moses (pbAh)’ had not come unto the time of John the
Baptist (pbAh). Jewish scholars were waiting for him. Their
inquiry from John the Baptist (pbAh) whether he was ‘that
prophet’ testifies their wait for him. John the Baptist (pbAh)
plainly explained that he was not ‘that prophet’. Jesus (pbAh)
550
al-Qura#n, Su#rah al-Muzzammil 73:15-19.
551
What an impressive and beautiful imagery! Had someone had an
opportunity to listen to the sonorous wordings of this verse (while, at
the same time, understanding its meaning), he should have appreciated
and enjoyed its force and beauty more deeply, which can by no means
be transmitted into its mere translation.
552
A.J.Arberry, The Koran Interpreted (Oxf. Univ. Press, 1983), 614.
Muhammad Foretold in the Bible by Name - 235
Appendix 3: Muh@ammad Foretold in the O T (The Prophet Like unto Moses)
553
The word ‘require’ has been explained to some extent in the very
first footnote of this article/Appendix.
554
Deu. 18:19 KJV.
236 - Muhammad Foretold in the Bible by Name